seabirds

We had to cancel yesterday because of the strong northerly wind, and it was still pretty breezy today. This is an offshore wind though, so close to the coast at least, it doesn’t make for rough conditions. On the morning Ocean Discovery we found some more Risso’s dolphins – a pair this time. They were…

It was extremely breezy today, so while sailing conditions were exciting, spotting conditions were difficult. It was all there though. This morning as we sailed out of the bay in the distance we saw masses of whirling diving seabirds and found a massive feeding frenzy. On the way we had a brief encounter with a…

We had a two hour trip with the charity Whale and Dolphin Conservation this morning (WDC) and some of their guests. The breeze was certainly stronger than it has been recently so we had a pretty good sail (with reefed sails!). On the island we saw Seaweed the grey seal dozing on a rock, with…

As can be the way of May, there was a bit of a quiet afternoon today, after the boom of the last few days. We were on the wrong tide for seals, so they were all elsewhere, but there were some seabirds to see. Nesting season is in full swing. It did feel a little…

We had an Ocean Discovery today on a flat sea with hardly any wind. First of all we watched a great northern diver catch something and devour it – not sure what the victim was, but the diver gave us good views! Further south in a shiny area of plankton we picked up some movement…

We had a fully booked Discovery Voyage this morning in bright sunshine. We went round to Land’s End and were treated to a shearwater spectacular of hundreds of them feeding in the tidal races, along with fulmars, kittiwakes and other gulls, gannets and lots of auks. There were also lots of seals hauled out on…

A four hour and a two hour trip today. We were expecting an easterly breeze but it wasn’t as choppy as it could have been, and there was warm sunshine. This morning we explored the coast along to Nanjizal, spotting several grey seals in different places as well as a good variety of seabirds including…

We had a Discovery Voyage this morning. After the strong wind recently conditions were tricky for spotting wildlife but we know it’s out there because Duncan and Josh spotted a minke whale surface in the bay. Is it the same one that’s been hanging around for a while? There were countless seabirds out there, mainly…

We had a four hour trip today in bright cold conditions, perfect for sailing. We spotted two minke whales! One of them was probably the same one as we saw the other day and the second was a small juvenile, who do sometimes appear at this time of year. They were very fast, so no…

We saw our first fins in a while today and excitingly one of them was an adult minke whale. We see most of these from July onwards but sometimes do see them in the early spring too. This was spotted by Josh just after we had been watching some resting common dolphins, which were quite…